Aiden McGeady – Martin O’Neill won’t hang around at Celtic to become the villain

Martin O’Neill won’t want to stay long enough at Celtic to become the villain, the former Celtic winger Aiden McGeady has claimed. Celtic has endured plenty of turmoil this season, in European football with the Champions League playoff disaster in Linz against LASK and three consecutive defeats in the resulting Europa League campaign against Ferencvaros, Benfica and Celta Vigo plus two defeats to the Rangers and most recently a 2-0 humbling away to Falkirk.

The veteran Celtic manager accepted the job on a permanent basis in the summer after two caretaker spells last season resulted in an unlikely double triumph with O’Neill midas touch delivering a never-to-be-forgotten Scottish Premiership title triumph at the expense of Hearts and a Scottish Cup final victory over Neil Lennon’s Dunfermline a week later.

Now though after another difficult transfer window in the summer under Michael Nicholson’s watch, O’Neill is operating with a squad that can’t deliver a strong enough starting eleven while the coaching standards for Celtic under the Irishman have been reported this week as being the worst in the league.

Aiden McGeady, speaking via Casinostugan, has outlined his thoughts on the predicament that Martin O’Neill finds himself in at the moment and reckons he will NOT stay around long enough to become the villain.

Here’s what McGeady has been saying about Martin O’Neill position at Celtic.

“It’s normal for questions to be asked, especially with Martin O’Neill’s contract situation. The phrase goes: ‘You live long enough to become the villain,’ don’t you? After winning the double at the end of last season, Martin O’Neill’s legacy couldn’t have been bigger, but sometimes you wonder if that was the right time to walk away.”

“Beyond the manager, there’s a broader disconnect between the fans and the board right now that’s adding to the tension. But they are still in with a chance of several trophies, there is still time to turn that feeling around.”

“Celtic will be fine domestically overall, but in the big games, against Rangers and in Europe, they’ve fallen short. That’s the big concern,” McGeady admits. “Apart from the Rangers and Falkirk games, Celtic have won pretty much every domestic game. But at some point you need to see a change in performance quality.

“The free-flowing attacking football isn’t quite there right now. Earlier in the season they were winning convincingly, now they’re scraping wins, which leads to questions being asked of the team and the manager.”

“This season could be the closest title race we’ve seen in a while. In previous years outside of the COVID season, Celtic were by far the better team. But (the) Rangers are improving and took a lot of belief from their two wins over Celtic recently.

“Celtic are still winning, but (the) Rangers are right there with them, they’ve only won one title in 15 seasons but they do look stronger this time out.

“Celtic are still top, but it will be those games against (the) Rangers towards the end of the season that decide where the title goes this season.”

A big factor in Celtic’s favour is that the squad and the management team clearly know how to win when the going gets especially tough at the business end of the season. Going into the split last season, Hearts were leading but the Rangers were regarded as favourites while Celtic were the outsiders of the three.

Hearts bottled it under Derek McInnes, despite his ‘disgusting’ behaviour, the current Ibrox manager can have no-one to blame but himself and his horrendous away record in the second half of last season. The Rangers meanwhile lost the first four of their post split fixtures before getting points in the last day dead rubber at Falkirk.

Winners know how to win and as for losers, well we know how that usually ends up for Derek McInnes…